So for those who do not know, we are in Houston for FotoFest 2006 (www.fotofest.org). It’s been pretty entertaining so far, but as of last night, we had hit a bit of a photography overload. As a result, we’ve decided to take the day off from FotoFest and just laze around the hotel and maybe go to the Bollywood Cinema down the road. I thought it would be fun, considering my Art History class – well, that and I really enjoy Bollywood movies.

Anyway, to sum up our trip so far, we dropped off the dogs with Angela on Wednesday morning and drove down to the hotel. It was about a 5 hour drive, that turned into a six hour drive when we realized we’d be dealing with a section of highway that was a toll road and we didn’t have any cash in the car. We had enough to get through one toll gate, but not a second one. After finally getting to the hotel, we unpacked, changed into slightly nicer clothes and headed out to Dornith’s Show Opening. That was yet another adventure as the map we had to the show was only the least big misleading and we found ourselves in a location where the road was not so much a road as it was a railroad track. About a half hour of hunting, we finally found ourselves at the gallery and it turned out to be a very good show. We spent about and hour there before heading back to the hotel, grabbing dinner on the way home.

Thursday, we decided we were going to start at the top of the Houston MetroRail and visit a bunch of the gallery spaces and museums in the Downtown and Museum districts. FotoFest headquarters was acutally about a block from UH-Central (and the north end of the rail), so we went there, looked at some really nice exhibits, parked in an all day lot, and headed into town on the rail. We went to a couple of smaller exhibits in some banks and corporate buildings before we accidentally ended up at the main FotoFest hotel, where we ran into some of my classmates and got to see how the portfolio show works. I realized all you have to do outside the portfolio exchange is toss some pictures on a table and people will just stop and look at your work. It’s a great community feel. There was really a sense of comraderie.

Heather decided she was tired of photography so we went to the Museum of Fine Arts where we got stuck in the Rennaisance for far too long. By the time we found our way out of the hundreds of paintings of the Mother and Child, we were both ready to go home. Unfortunately, that’s when we found the art I would more enjoy. We ran through some more contemporary work, without really spending time to appreciate it, before we hopped back on the rail to go back to the car. We had wanted to go to the Houston Children’s Museum as well, but we just didn’t have the energy anymore.

Before we got back to the hotel, we decided we were going to take today off, and we were going to make use of the microwave in the room and just save some money on food. We had to find a grocery store, which was apparently much tougher than one would expect. While driving miles and miles down our main road near our hotel, Heather kept exclaiming “where do you people by your groceries?” We passed stores and restraunts of all kinds, but no groceries. We finally, after who knows how long, found a Super Walmart. We stocked up on microwave dinners and headed home. It was on that journey that we found the Bollywood Cinema, so we decided that we would spend a couple hours there today. I don’t know what we’re going to see, but either way, it should be fun.

So anyway, the contintental breakfast area has gotten very crowded all of a sudden, so I’m gonna post this and run. Hope you all are having a decent Spring Break.